I know it’s hard to see that I’ve been Peace Corpsing (which is different than Peace Corpseing) given all of my other posts, but once again, I swear I’ve been doing more than just partying! Projects just manifest more slowly so they make for less exciting reading material.

The two easiest ways I’ve volunteered: 1. Helping another group with their community project. 2. Teaching the neighbor girls English.

1. Each training group in my cohort has to do a community project. Each group gets to choose what they want to do, based on the community needs and/or strengths, and the strengths of those in the group. A group in a neighboring town determined in conjunction with their mayor’s office that a good project would be beautifying their city through cleanups, involving youth in those cleanups, and the empowering the youth to carry on the cleanups afterwards. I, along with my groupmate Shelby, decided to give the kiddos a hand cleaning up their community and see how this other group ran their cleanup. It ended up being a fun way to see another community (the only one of the training towns I hadn’t yet seen), talk to some of the kids, and get ideas for our own cleanup (more on this on Friday).

2. Two of my neighbors across the street are really sweet sisters, 9 and 12. The 12 year-old’s English teacher is my counterpart for my practicum during training, and one day she approached me and asked for a favor. “I was wondering if you could help me with my English homework. Libia said I could ask you.” Of course I said, “Of course!” and the next day not only the 12 year-old appeared at my door, but also her sister and her best friend. That day we practiced introductions and talked a little bit about the alphabet and phonics, and I told them they could come back the next day. The next day I just had the two sisters, and since the younger one had been learning the names for fruits in school and the other had been learning to say “My favorite food is….” I combined them. Kids here love to draw and are fantastic artists, so I had them draw their own vocab cards. They did such a great job! Afterwards we played a couple games, and I sent them on their way so I could get to work with my groupmates. Of course, before I sent them away, I asked them for a picture. I had shown them some of my pictures of my family and of Marty the previous day, so they said, “Let’s smile like Brianna!” And then my heart melted and now I’m barely alive because I have a liquid heart.

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